miércoles, 19 de agosto de 2009

Fata Morgana

Many years ago, a woman was killed, in a cycle that, as the narrator says, is bound to happen again. A few years later, the town is being completely abandoned, a model named Gim (Teresa Gimpera) is terrorized that she will be murdered at the repeat of this same cycle. All men want to talk to her because of her beauty, but she runs away from them all, from her teacher to a gang of street punks obsessed with her. The FBI sends an agent to get her.Not to be confused with the Werner Herzog film, this was actually Vicente Aranda’s first film, a director who would continue to make weird and bizarre films in Spain. And this movie really is strange. Everyone acts like they’re either high or taking things too seriously, and the paranoia of Gim reaches hilarious levels, such as her weird session in the zoo with a mustached man who may be more involved than anyone else thinks. In contrast is the weird story of the agent’s search for gym, which takes him from weird butlers to a guy wearing an invisible man costume. This is obviously the best character in the film, a master of disguise who always appears in different forms, particularly more memorable as that of a blind man. It’s all really weird, but funny. I would compare it to a Jess Franco film, with it’s mix of weirdness, suspense and humor. Very entertaining.